The Watchman
by twasadark
Summary: Seven days until the deadline for Dean’s oneway trip to hell, Sam finally figures out how to save his brother’s life.  On that day, Dean nearly dies.
1. Chapter 1

_An oracle concerning Dumah: _

_Someone calls to me from Seir,_

_"Watchman, what is left of the night?_

_Watchman, what is left of the night?"_

_The watchman replies,_

_"Morning is coming, but also the night._

_If you would ask, then ask;_

_and come back yet again."_

_Isaiah 21:11-12_

Seven days until the deadline for Dean's one-way trip to hell, Sam finally figures out how to save his brother's life. On that day, Dean nearly dies.

Turns out it's not a coincidence.

Sam, wired from too much coffee, too much adrenaline, and a countdown that makes him want to howl in frustration every time a new hour registers on his watch, has slipped out of the hotel room just after dawn. He doesn't go far, just around the corner to lean up against the wall and call Bobby with relative privacy. Said relative he wants privacy from being Dean, of course. Luckily, he has Bobby on speed dial because his hands are shaking so badly that it would have taken him ten minutes to punch in the number correctly otherwise.

The thought _please oh please oh please oh please _is running through his head, chugging and revving, wheels spinning, steam hissing and screaming like a demonic freight train, when Bobby answers. And Sam knows, he just _knows_ from the tone of Bobby's voice – the warm, tired, happy tone, that Bobby has found the information they have both been seeking for so damned long. Good information, this time. The right information. Sam hardly remembers the conversation. He's sure he spoke, stumbled out some sort of choked "thank you", but for the life of him he can't remember what he said. He doesn't remember hanging up the phone, or how he ends up sitting on the pavement, ass throbbing from the hard fall, his head knocking back against the brick wall. None of it matters. He remembers the important thing. The important words. They are branded on his brain:

Joseph Sidley

1344 Millhouse Road, #57

Boston, Massachusetts

Joseph Sidley. The key to Dean's salvation.

When Sam hears a door shut around the corner, he climbs to his feet, struggling to calm his galloping heart, and wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. Time is in short supply. Now, he has to figure out a way to ditch Dean for a few days without Dean getting suspicious.

From where he's standing, Sam sees that the shutting door has been Dean's doing. Dressed and freshly showered, his duffel on his shoulder, Dean is heading for the Impala. Suddenly, he stops, swaying, his hand rising to his forehead. His duffel slides off his shoulder and he sinks to the ground, landing on his hands and knees, back hunched as terrible coughs wrack him.

"Dean!" Sam cries.

He reaches his brother in moments and grips Dean's shoulders, trying to steady him as he shakes and coughs like he's trying to expel a lung. Sam looks with horror at the pavement underneath Dean's bent head: pavement splattered with dark, thick gouts of his brother's blood. After what seemed like an eternity, his coughs quiet.

Dean leans back on his heels, chest heaving as he struggles to breathe. His face is weak and pale, and a long shiny stream of blood hung from the corner of his mouth to stain his shirt.

"S-s-s-am," he stutters, looking dazed and exhausted. His voice sounds quiet and defeated. "Sorry, Sammy. I think my time's all up."

Then his eyes roll back in his head and he slumps over into Sam's arms.

--

The next four hours are one long, extended nightmare. Sam alternates between sitting in the hard plastic chairs of the hospital ER, hands clenching and unclenching, head throbbing, to pacing down the sterile hallway, past listless, slumped wheelchair-bound patients.

Sam had no sooner pulled up to the ER's entrance, tires squealing, before the hospital attendants rushed out to haul Dean, boneless and frighteningly white, from the Impala's back seat. They dumped him on a gurney and whisked him behind closed doors. Sam hasn't seen him since.

When a nurse at last comes to get Sam and guide him to the doctor's office, Sam knows the news wouldn't be good. He keeps flashing back to the last time he'd been in a doctor's office, listening to the man tell him that his brother was dying.

The news isn't any better this time.

"I'm sorry," the sad-faced Indian doctor says. "We've managed to stop your brother's bleeding, but I'm afraid that's all we can do for now. He's a very sick young man. Frankly, he should have been in treatment. He's been having symptoms for some time now, but he tells me that he didn't want to worry you about them."

Sam feels as pale as Dean had looked. "What do you mean, symptoms?"

"Weakness, fatigue, loss of appetite, persistent coughing."

Sam thinks back over the last few weeks. Damn it. He should have known, he should have questioned his brother. He_knows_ how secretive and heedless of his health Dean can be. Especially now, with the hourglass running out.

"He, uh, he told me that he'd had the flu."

"All these are common symptoms of his condition. Unfortunately, many people ignore the symptoms until it's too late."

"Condition?" Sam hears himself say, voice cracking.

"I'm afraid your brother has Stage 4 lung cancer, Mr. Wilson."

The room begins to swim in slow, nauseating circles. And Sam can't breathe, he just can't breathe through the tightness in his chest, the squeezing of his heart. The doctor goes on, saying something about pain management and blood transfusions and hospice because _He'll be most comfortable there, Mr. Wilson. _ Most comfortable for the time he has left.

Two weeks at the most.

Afterward, a tiny, soft-voiced nurse leads him down a confusing maze of hallways to Dean's room. Dean lays asleep and motionless, dwarfed and shrunken by the huge bed, white sheets and white pillows and his white, colorless face. The contrast of his eyelashes, dark and long, make him look all the more fragile.

Sam sits in the chair beside the bed, holds his brother's cool, limp hand, and cries for twenty minutes.

Then he calls the local hospice and made arrangements for his brother's care.

--


	2. Chapter 2

--

Two days later and a thousand miles away, Sam sits in the shadows of Joseph Sidley's apartment waiting for the man to come home from work or church or the neighborhood bar or wherever. The open window lets the smells of summer in, carried on humid, cooling air. The aroma of fish frying at the dockside restaurants makes Sam's stomach rumble. It has been almost 24 hours since he last ate–a package of oatmeal cookies from a vending machine. He starts to tap his foot, impatient and jittery. The memory of Dean's face won't leave his mind.

Twenty-four hours ago he stood at the side of Dean's bed, watching Dean's mouth quirk, and listening to the raspy, matter-of-fact way he is saying, "We knew I was going to die, Sammy. Guess the Big Bad is making sure I go when my time's up."

Sam turned aside, jamming his hands in his pockets and biting his tongue against another round of what must sound like vain assurances to Dean: _I'll save you, Dean. I've found a way. I just need you to believe in me_. Instead, he just looked out the window of the cozy hospice room. A room with wallpaper and real lamps, a quilt on the bed and a view of a park where children played as their parents looked on. White clouds and blue sky overhead. A peaceful, normal day. Everywhere but here.

"I have to go somewhere for a few days, Dean," Sam said.

Dean was quiet for a moment, and then he said, "Sam, please." Just that. But the way he said it … he sounded so broken, so weak. It hurt to hear him. Sam wished he would rage and curse and threaten, anything but plead. It made facing him all the harder.

Dean was still, his face so terribly pale, his eyes wide and dark, swimming with feelings that had slipped through the ever-widening cracks of his carefully constructed emotional barriers.

Sam pressed his lips together in a vain attempt to keep them from trembling. He moved to the side of Dean's bed, curled his hand around the back of his brother's neck, and squeezed gently. "I'll be back," he said gently.

And he turned around and walked out the door of the hospice.

--

A little before 11 pm, Sam hears the key in the lock, soft clicking and the creaking of the door opening. Sam rises and backs up into a darkened corner of the small crowded room. There are plenty of places to hide here. Sidley seems to be into antiques—nowadays he probably sells the damn things on eBay, even though that is a seriously weird thought, considering the man's identity. But Sam supposes that even supernatural beings have to make a living.

Sidley comes in the door, unsuspecting, carrying a handful of mail that he discards piece by piece on the table as he looks through it. He appears to be a normal person, average height, brown hair, pale coloring. He's wearing khaki pants and a plain tan-colored shirt. Each aspect of his appearance is carefully coordinated to make him seem unremarkable.

Sam moves silently from his hiding place, coming up behind Sidley. Sidley freezes, evidently sensing eyes on him. He turns warily, jerking with surprise as he notices Sam.

"Who are you?" He gasps. "What are you doing in my house?"

Sam gives a cold little smile. "Oh, I think you know why I'm here."

The guy begins to shake, little tremors running up and down his arms and shoulders.

"Hey, you do a pretty good imitation of being scared," Sam observes. "How long did it take you to learn to do that? Lots of years, I suppose."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Now, Joseph," Sam says. "Of course you do. I know what you are."

Sidley moves like a blur, kicking a tall wooden coat rack toward Sam and sprinting out the front door and down the hallway.

With a curse, Sam dodges the coat rack and takes off after him. A flash of movement around the corner sends Sam down the rickety staircase, skipping four or five steps at a time, swinging around the banister at the landing, jarring his ankles as he lands with both feet on the third step down. Sidley glances over his shoulder, eyes flashing a brilliant light that consumes both the irises and whites for an instant.

Sam reaches out, fingers snatching at Sidley's shirt, and feeling the fabric slip away. A rush of determination propels Sam faster, bringing him close enough to grasp Sidley by the upper arm and jerk him around, slamming him against the wall. He jams his forearm against Sidley's throat.

"You're going to help me, Joseph," Sam says. "You don't have a choice in the matter."

Sidley narrows his eyes. Sweat shines on his temples and moistens the skin on his throat. How human he seems!

"What are you going to do?" Sidley sneers. "You can't hurt me."

"Maybe I don't need to," Sam grits. He presses harder on Sidley's neck. The muscle and bone beneath his arm hardens until it feels like steel beneath him. Sam makes a small noise of surprise and starts. Sidley takes that opportunity to buck his body forward, throwing Sam off him enough to slip from his grip and continue down the stairs.

Sam is on him in a moment, but this time Sidley lashes out with his iron-hard arm and smashes Sam into the wall, making his head crack against the hard wood. Sam sees stars, but flings himself after Sidley regardless, praying that his vision will clear soon enough to keep him from slipping and killing himself.

The stairs let out in a dark boiler room that housed brooms, mops, and old cans of paint. It smells musty here, like old earth trampled on for years and years. Sam casts around desperately, knowing that Sidley has to be here somewhere – the room has no exit, not even a little blacked out window. And although Sam doesn't really know the scope of Sidley's powers, he knows that the man cannot walk through walls. Dim light from the naked bulb in the hallway filters into the room. As Sam's eyes adjust to the weak light he listens for breathing.

An instant later he takes three steps toward the huge metal storage shelf, using one of the shelves as a step as he launches himself into the air, fingers closing on Sidley's shirtfront as he clings to the rafters overhead. He comes down directly on top of Sam, sending up an elbow poking Sam hard in the kidney. Sam wraps his long arms around Sidley's chest, bear hugging him and rolling as Sidley struggles like some incredibly strong fish out of water, muscles giving great contractions, tossing and twisting. Sam tightens his grip grimly.

There's no way he will let Sidley up. Absolutely no way.

Sam holds on, entire body straining as he puts every last dram of strength into restraining Sidley. His limbs no longer feel like they're made of metal, but neither do they feel completely human. Sam has no sooner registered that thought than he feels the needles rising from Sidley's skin.

Every place Sam grips the man—the creature—needles, small, sharp, and agonizing, jab into his skin. Sam stiffens and cries out, concentrating all his energy on not releasing his hold, not one bit. Sidley tosses him to and fro, a cross between a cactus and a wild bronco. _This is insane,_ he thinks, and gives a choked, half-hysterical bark of laughter.

The pain is bad. He's been stabbed, shot, crushed, choked, and flung into walls. But this? It _hurts_. Tears well up in his eyes. A high-pitched whine he doesn't recognize as his own emanates from his throat.

The needles in his crotch, now those are above and beyond the call of duty. Except that really, they aren't. How much is too much when your brother has sold his soul for you?

Sam takes to counting his breaths. If he can just make it to a hundred. He can last that long. He knows he can.

Then it occurs to him that really, this is the same as acupuncture. And that doesn't even hurt, at least not after the first instant. Right?

The needles disappear. The dizzying thrill of agony their abrupt withdrawal produces is even worse than the initial punctures. Sam buries his face in the crook of Sidley's neck, waiting for the pain to subside.

"I am _not_ letting you go until you help me," Sam grits.

"You stupid humans," Sidley hisses. "Always greedy for something. Can't you just be satisfied with what you have?"

Then he slams his elbow into Sam's head, making his ears ring. Before Sam registers what's happening, he finds himself flat on his back, Sidley's snarling face above him. His breath smells like garlic.

Sam hooks a leg behind Sidley's knee and yanks, rolling both of them over so that Sam dominates again. And so it goes, seemingly forever, one of them gaining the upper hand, then the other, always trying and straining and struggling. A cold, terrible fear sprouts and grows in Sam's gut, an unthinkable suspicion that he won't have the physical strength to see this through, to do what he has to do to save his brother. And that, that feels like the end of the world.

Sam knows that one of his most enduring, aggravating traits is his stubbornness. He employs it now, despite the way his limbs shake and burn from exhaustion; despite the way sweat soaks his t-shirt and plasters his hair to his neck; despite his flagging energy level and gnawing thirst.

"I am satisfied with what I have," Sam says at some point, voice harsh against walls that had only reflected grunts and cries of effort since the last clipped words they had spoken. "I want to keep it. That's why I need you."

Sam feels Sidley's interest in his body, a sort of minute perking up in his muscles. "Nothing _you_ need can justify the price I have to pay. Nothing ever has."

"There's a first time for everything," Sam grunts.

"I doubt it. Everything old is new again."

"Are we going to spend the entire night trading clichés?" Sam asks.

"No, of course not," Sidley says, his voice sounding soft and oddly hypnotic. "Night is for sleeping, for rest. I know that you are so tired. Terribly tired …"

God, he _is_ tired. He can feel the weariness burning his eyes and making his eyelids sag.

"Rest. Just let go. It is so easy," Sidley says.

Sam wants to. He wants to more than anything.

Almost anything.

He shakes his head, appalled at how he close he was to falling for Sidley's trick.

"Sorry, Joseph," he whispers into Sidley's ear. "I'm not going to make it that easy for you."

Sidley gives an angry cry and the struggle starts up in earnest again.

--

Thanks for reading, all. More coming very soon, I promise. Please do review if you like it—or even if you don't … ;-)


	3. Chapter 3

--

Time is a sea, lapping against the rolling surge of their bodies, forever twisting and turning. Physical strength has its limits. Limits that Sam is sure he passed some miles back. Every tendon feels pulled, every bone bruised. His skin feels rubbed raw, leaking blood into the thirsty earth.

He keeps on past the point of rational thought. Sidley doesn't give an inch, matches him cry for cry and push for pull. At some point, Sam doesn't think he can give up even if he wanted to. His limbs and mind are locked on one, all-consuming purpose. He feels a fierce, grim pride in the knowledge that even if it kills him he will not relent.

He won't.

"You'll wish you had," Sidley whispers, and touches Sam's hip.

Just touches it. Some unstoppable invisible force yanks his right leg. With a sickening tearing sound, it dislocates from the hip bone.

Sam arches against the blinding, nauseating agony, screaming.

His vision whites out, consuming the world for an instant or an hour. Time means nothing here.

When he comes back to himself he's laying half on and half off Sidley, the both of them panting and sweat-soaked. Sidley's face looks stark and pale, his eyes wide, inky pools. "Morning is breaking." His voice is wrecked. "Let me go."

Surprise jolts through Sam. He can hardly grasp the idea that they have wrestled all night long. His body is telling him a different story. He closes his eyes, swallows to gather enough saliva to speak. "No," he rasps. "Your name. Give it to me."

Sidley's eyes communicate a near-mindless rage; he looks at Sam as if he's reading a story in blood and bone. Sam feels him trembling, feels an unnatural heat pouring off Sidley's skin; he prepares himself for another assault. Defeat flashes across Sidley's face. He speaks in a sound like broken glass grinding underfoot. "Medatron."

Exhilaration rockets up Sam's spine. This is it, the moment he has strived for.

"Give me yours," Medatron says.

"Samuel."

Medatron gives a faint smile. "The voice crying in the night. You have heard it." He breathes, a low wheeze. "The blessing is yours."

"No, please," Sam says, voice cracking with emotion, hot tears coursing down his cheeks. "My brother. Free him from his contract." He gives a thin, half-hysterical chuckle. "If there's any left over you can keep me from dying in the process."

There's a brief pause before Medatron says, "It is so."

A sob escapes Sam's throat. The great hot lump of emotion in his chest melts away, leaving him weak and quivering.

Medatron's eyes are transforming. Light kindles within them, a brilliant light that streams outward in ever-growing, terrible rays. Sam suddenly knows that the light will burn him to nothing unless he shields his eyes. As he brings his hands to his face, he glimpses them. They imprint an afterimage into his retinas.

Wings. Outstretched; pure white and intricately patterned. Beautiful and soft and heartbreakingly perfect. More so than anything he has ever seen.

The light flares hot and intense and disappears. So does Medatron. The places where their bodies were touching sting as though splashed with acid.

The suddenness of the loss of light and physical contact bludgeons Sam's senses. He lays there in the dirt, pain shredding a slow awful path from his hip to his head. The silence surrounding has a sound all of its own; it throbs through him. He breathes, struggling to hold on as reality comes rushes back in to fill the vacuum left by Medatron.

He plants his elbows in the dirt and starts to drag himself the immeasurable distance to the stairs. He makes it a foot before pain and exhaustion draw a black curtain over him, and he knows no more.

--

A janitor wakes him with the sound of rapid praying in Spanish and the feel of warm hands grasping his. He blinks, trying to focus on the man, but every time he opens and shuts his eyes he sees a different sight: first the basement, then an ambulance, then the hospital, bright white and cold.

The janitor stays with him, holding his hand through his screaming as two ER doctors curse, pull, and wrestle his leg back in place.

--

Fifteen hours later, powered by painkillers, four cups of hot black coffee, and the desperate need to see his brother, Sam limps into the hospice ward. He knows he looks like hell, blood dotted, filthy and exhausted. He sees this reflected in the shocked expressions of the staff. Dimly, he hears voices, people greeting him and asking him questions. He has no words for them.

Heart slamming into sore ribs, he makes an unerring path to Dean's room. He pauses against the closed door, leaning his head on the painted surface, just breathing in an effort to collect himself. To steel himself for what he might find. Then he's pushing open the door.

Dean is sitting on the bed on top of the covers, no longer propped up against a pile of pillows due to weakness. Just sitting there in the same kind of position Sam has seen him in a thousand times. He's wearing jeans and a t-shirt and his boots are crossed over his ankles. He's flicking cards on the bedspread one by one in an expert, half-impatient manner. As though he's been waiting for Sam to get his ass over here to pick him up.

"Sam," he says, eyes widening at the sight of him. He smiles, relief and happiness in his eyes, and rises to greet Sam.

Then Sam's touching him, hands running up and down strong arms and over straight shoulders, across the stiff gelled hair and over the warm smooth skin of his face. Sam's throat is making ragged little noises and his eyes are swallowing Dean's healthy color, his strength and vitality. Dean's alive and well and hell, he's _glowing_, he looks so good.

He's free. Sam doesn't have to ask to know that the deal has been broken. The freedom exudes from his pores, radiates from him. And Sam can't breathe because it's over, God, it's really _over_. A year's worth of anxiety, a year's worth of tension and desperation stripped away in one fell swoop, leaving him dizzy and grateful and overcome. He realizes in that moment that the holy light from Medatron is no longer the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

It's his brother's face.

End

_So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob's hip so that his hip was wrenched. Then the man said, "Let me go, for the day is breaking." _

_But Jacob replied, "I will not let you go unless you bless me." _

_The man asked him, "What is your name?" _

_"Jacob," he answered._

_Then the man said, "Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome."_

_Jacob said, "Please tell me your name."_

_But he replied, "Why do you ask my name?" Then he blessed him there._

_Genesis 32:24-32_

**Author's Notes –** It may be obvious to some, but I have no knowledge whatsoever of the symptoms of lung cancer. But, you know, artistic license and all that.

The lore says that the angel's name was Metatron. Which sounds like some sort of vitamin you'd buy off the Internet. Or maybe a robot. Anyhow, I changed its spelling to something I thought sounded a little more angelic. The title is from the Bible verses at the beginning of the fic. The 'lore' also says that Metatron is also the name of the watchman referenced there.

Thanks for reading this little fic. I'd love to hear what you thought of it.


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